I don't understand why anyone would feel that the "Google Chef" scenario was a problem. By joining a young company, that probably can't pay you a market rate salary and that has a significant chance of failing, you are taking risks. You are compensated for those risks with equity.

It's an out of the money call option - you expect that 90% (95%? 99%?) of the time it won't pay out, but when it does pay out, the payoff could be anywhere from "pretty good" to "life changing".

Sure, the early Google employees are way out in the tails of the distribution (just like the early Facebook employees, early Twitter employees, early LinkedIn employees etc). But someone has to be in the tails of the distribution, and the fact that you see someone there certainly doesn't mean that they don't deserve their payout.